Startups Stack Exchange Archive

What is meant by the term ‘Unicorn’

• posted by: AndyM on 2015-08-02
• tagged: business-model
• score: 1

I’ve seen this word popping up all over the place, and I presume it means ‘very successful start-up’, but I was wondering about the history and if there was more naunced meaning.

Answer 5924

• posted by: Phil Rybka on 2015-08-02
• score: 5

A ‘Unicorn’ simply means a startup whose valuation has exceeded $1b dollars.

There is also something like the term ‘decacorn’, meaning a company with a valuation of $10 billion or more.

As of the history of the term ‘Unicorn’ it was coined by Cowboy Ventures founder Aileen Lee in this November 2013 TechCrunch blog post:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/

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